Electrical connectors may be used in orthogonal applications. In an orthogonal application, each of two connectors is mounted to a respective, opposite side of a so-called “midplane.” The connectors are electrically coupled to one another through the midplane. A pattern of electrically conductive vias may be formed through the midplane. The terminal mounting ends of the contacts may be received into the vias. To reduce the complexity of the midplane, it is often desirable that the terminal mounting ends of the contacts from a first of the connectors be received into the same vias as the terminal mounting ends of the contacts from the other connector.
In traditional orthogonal electrical connector assemblies, two orthogonal connectors having the same number of contact leads are mounted to the midplane, one connector on each side of the midplane. However, this configuration may not allow for electrical connection of a connector contact to trace routing on the midplane PCB. Also, in traditional orthogonal electrical connector assemblies, only orthogonal leadframe assemblies are contained in each orthogonal connector. This configuration may limit the spacing between the PCB vias, which may limit the available channels for trace routing on the midplane PCB.